Penn State really needed a big win to bolster its NCAA Tournament resume, and Michigan’s trip to Happy Valley on Senior Day gave them a great opportunity to ease their way up the bubble. Michigan played excellent defense in the first half and built a sizable lead, which was quickly erased by Tony Carr and Lamar Stevens early in the second half. The Wolverines responded, mixed in some different 2-3 defenses that threw Penn State off balance, and a couple Moe Wagner threes helped Michigan pull out to a lead that they wouldn’t relinquish. Solid free throw shooting down the stretch (9-10 on intentional fouls) staved off a Nittany Lion comeback and Michigan escaped with one of its best wins of the season against a desperate team that was on a hot streak.

Despite a few indifferent late-game possessions. Carr and Stevens - arguably the best guard in the conference and a very capable sidekick - scored 40 points combined, but it took them 39 shot equivalents to do it. Carr was held in check in the first half with solid defense from Zavier Simpson and timely double-teams; he knocked down a few threes of varying difficulty and got to the rim in the second half - finishing with a 21 point, 5 rebound, 6 assist line. Stevens was often guarded by Duncan Robinson when Michigan played man-to-man, and Robinson made him work for many of his points; the Wolverines initially allowed him too much room in the middle of the zone, but adjusted to harass him into a couple key mistakes.

No other Nittany Lion scored in double figures. Their best center, Mike Watkins, was injured while contesting a Charles Matthews layup, and only played five minutes on the night. That loss came early in the game, as both teams struggled to score: Michigan had five quick turnovers, and Penn State futilely tried post-ups on most possessions. Jon Teske had some impactful minutes on the defensive end in the first half after Wagner picked up his first foul. Even after Wagner returned, Penn State labored for good looks until a late burst by Stevens.

The Wolverines were able to build their initial lead with scoring off the bench from Robinson and Jordan Poole, who combined for 20 of Michigan’s 34 first half points. Robinson hit his first three-point attempt after screening and popping out of Michigan’s side curl action, had a nice cut for a layup, got Stevens to bite on a pump fake and knocked down a two-point jumper, blew by him for a layup, and hit another three. Poole made a corner three off an extra pass, had an absolutely ridiculous dunk over Julian Moore for an and-one, and got an easy transition layup. The freshman had a few rough moments, but his scoring was an upgrade over Matthews, who had his worst game of the season.

Michigan led by 13 at one point, but Penn State was much better out of the halftime break, scoring on their first four possessions: Carr got Simpson on his hip and took him to the rim for two, Michigan helped too far off Stevens for a three and gave Carr another one on a bad scramble situation, and Josh Reaves blew by Poole for a layup. Penn State took the lead before the first TV timeout, and it looked as if Michigan might get run out of the gym. John Beilein eventually turned to the zone, which was effective. The initial zone was spread too thin, but Michigan adjusted to sink into the high post when the ball was entered into Stevens.

Wagner made some big plays after that. He had made a few early threes (including one on the first possession of the game), but too often would pump-fake and drive into traffic for worse looks in the paint. Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman made a play late in the shot clock to find Wagner for a corner three to break a Penn State run; shortly after, Matthews found him on the wing for another on a pick-and-pop - and instead of driving it on Stevens (a stretch-four who was guarding Wagner in a small-ball lineup), he hit a three over him. Penn State and Michigan traded buckets and stops for a while, until Wagner hit a tough layup on a drive against Moore and Poole nailed another corner three to trigger a Penn State timeout and give Michigan a 54-48 lead with seven minutes left.

Out of the timeout, Nazeer Bostick threw it right to Abdur-Rahkman in the zone, and Simpson scored an absurd swooping sky-hook over Carr on the next possession. Michigan had a few empty possessions from there, but stops on the defensive end - including Wagner drawing a charge on Stevens, Robinson emphatically rejecting a Stevens dunk, and Carr missing a couple threes - helped Michigan hold onto the lead. The Wolverines were up four with under three minutes left when Abdur-Rahkman hit a very tough layup over Reaves (maybe the best perimeter defender in the Big Ten, who helped force Abdur-Rahkman into an uncharacteristic four turnovers), Bostick missed a wild layup attempt, and Robinson hit a transition three for the dagger.

It was mostly a free throw exhibition from there: Robinson made both, Wagner made both, Simpson made one of two, Livers made both, and Poole made both. A few uncontested Penn State buckets were interspersed in there, but a comeback wasn’t possible. Michigan overcame an unusually high level of turnovers and a negative shot differential, mostly because they made 10-21 three-pointers (all but one came from Wagner, Robinson, and Poole). Robinson had a great game - in addition to his team-high 19 points, he had three blocks and a steal. Wagner put up 18 and 8 rebounds. Poole chipped in with 13 and played 26 minutes to Matthews’s 17. Simpson and Abdur-Rahkman each had their struggles against a tough defense, but each scored nine points.

Michigan’s record improved to 23-7 (12-5 in the Big Ten) and is moving its way up the seed line. They still have a chance at a double bye in the Big Ten Tournament if they beat Maryland and Penn State beats Nebraska this weekend. Even though Matthews was held scoreless, the Wolverines dribbled out the clock on the road against what was a Kenpom Top 25 team. Robinson and Abdur-Rahkman are rounding into form as their careers wind to an end, Poole has played two really good games in a row, and Moe Wagner is consistently punishing teams with the mismatches he creates. This win against Penn State was very impressive, and Michigan looks like they’ll be a very tough out in March.

THE ESSENTIALS

Jon Crispin and a microphone is the worst Penn State combination since [REDACTED -ed]

THE US

This is the second of Michigan's three QUADRANT ONE(!) opportunities to close the regular season; winning the first one of those was enough to move Michigan up to a six seed on the previously skeptical Bracket Matrix. This one might not draw that kind of attention because PSU is struggling to get into the tourney instead of competing for a Sweet 16 seed like OSU was, but it's considerably tougher per Vegas and ranking systems. Penn State has been on a tear that has moved them into a virtual tie with Michigan on Kenpom. Since it's a road game this equates to a 38% shot at victory.

For Michigan to do that they'll have to have one of those games where they shoot well from the perimeter. Scuffling, like they've done too frequently this year, means they'll have to lock down a very hot offense. But they could do that. The matchups here are weird, what with PSU's 6'5" lead dog and Michigan's stretch five.

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.

Hughes carries the puck into the zone and starts down the wing long enough to draw a defender, Gilbert, toward him. Gilbert is wise not to step up and into Hughes because Raabe is coming down the wing and, as far as timing is concerned, in excellent position to receive a drop pass.

Hughes waits until Gilbert gets close before making his move. He sees that Gilbert’s moving more or less in a straight line toward the boards, so he cuts up toward the blue line and moves laterally across it.

Adam Winborg is the Michigan skater in the blue box below. Dawson Cook is the Notre Dame skater in the blue box below. Quinn Hughes is the puck carrier in the screen cap below. Two of the people in said screen cap have just noticed that Winborg is headed for the front of the net. One of them has the puck and is in good position to shoot, and the other has to shift his weight and chase Winborg.

Winborg keeps his blade on the ice and Hughes’ shot hits it and goes airborne. The puck goes in over Morris’ shoulder in one of the only ways he can be beaten.

About halfway through the third period on Sunday I started to wonder about 1-0 victories, specifically how long it had been since Michigan had made one lousy goal stand up. (ENGs do not count for our reckoning.) I probably should not have done that. It's the kind of thinking you deeply regret when a puck passes behind the goaltender and still deeply regret even when it miraculously squirts out the other side. I still thought it, though. It seemed plausible Michigan would accomplish this thing.

The answer turns out to be shockingly recent: on February 15th of last year Zach Nagelvoort had a 42-save shutout as Michigan squeezed by OSU 1-0 thanks to a Nick Pastujov goal. But the larger wonderment still stands, I think, because you have to go all the way back to the 2011 Life As A Vole national semifinal against North Dakota to hit the next one.

Those games were similar in that both featured Michigan scoring a weird early goal and then hanging on for dear life. They got outshot 2 to 1 in both, and at no point until the final buzzer or blessed Scooter Vaughn empty net goal did victory seem probable. I know this about the 2011 North Dakota game because I remember every terrifying moment of the third period. I know this about last year's Ohio State game, which I probably did not watch, because I saw other games that hockey team played. At no point during either game did anyone wonder about 1-0 victories, because clearly this would not be a 1-0 game.

So they are very different than Sunday's 1-0 win against then-#1 Notre Dame, in which Michigan outshot the Irish by a large margin 5x5. Two power plays and another two minutes of frantic face-clenching action after ND pulled their goalie got ND to near-parity, but not quite, and when the buzzer sounded Michigan had finished its four games against the Big Ten's best team having outplayed them everywhere except their penalty kill. And on Sunday they'd done it in a very un-Michigan way: by matching Notre Dame's relentless discipline.

Each team had one opportunity at a three on two, sort of. Depending on how you want to classify odd-man rushes, it might have been zero. Notre Dame's didn't even get inside the Michigan blue line. I don't think I've ever seen Michigan have a game where they don't give up an odd-man rush. Maybe it's happened against a tomato can here and there, but probably not. The last five or so years of Michigan hockey has been about trying to outscore your mistakes, which they managed to do when they the Connor-Motte-Compher line and at no other point.

It's taken a while for new-era Michigan to work past the recent chaos. Since resuming in January, it appears they have. They're 8-5-1 against a slate of opponents who—except for Michigan State—are all either in the tournament or plausibly on the bubble. That's not the greatest run in the history of hockey; it has been good enough to take them from the deep 20s to a three seed. Expecting more would be insane. Just last year Michigan was hovering amongst the very worst teams in college hockey in Corsi...

white included to demonstrate that there ain't no more teams

...and this year they're a point or two above average. This is a one year turnaround that matches what Mel did when he arrived at Michigan Tech. Tantalizingly, he had another gear from there.

Tech won 13 games the next year and 14 in 2013-14, the first year of college hockey's new landscape. This alone is impressive in the modern context of Tech hockey; that's the first time Tech had won double-digit games since Bob Mancini did it from 1993 to 1996.

That alone would not be impressive enough to grab the Michigan job, but then Pearson had the following three seasons:

29-10-2, at-large bid to tourney as #2 seed, #5 ES Corsi*

23-9-5, WCHA regular season champs, #3 ES Corsi

23-15-7, WCHA playoff champs, NCAA bid, #3 ES Corsi

Unless Michigan hits the Jack Hughes jackpot, Michigan's not going to have another Connor or Larkin for a couple years here. The recruiting pipeline dried up a little deep into the Red era, so they'll have to make do with guys who grind their way up the ranks year by year, like Tony Calderone. It's been tough for Michigan to win with just those guys of late; transcendent talent was needed, and even then it wasn't always enough.

There's no transcendent talent this year. Even Quinn Hughes is a year away from being able to tell when he should plunder the opposition crease and when he should stay back. Michigan scores goals like the one lousy one they made stand up on Sunday: forcing a defensive zone turnover from the opposition and flinging it in over the goalie's shoulder before the defense can re-set. But it works, because they can go a whole game without giving up an odd man rush. For anyone who watched the last few years of Michigan hockey that sounds like a 180 on a dime in a leaky battleship.

Michigan looks ahead of schedule in year one, headed for a wide-open tourney with a couple of recent one-seed Ws painted on its nose cone. It turns out that Mel Pearson was exactly the right guy. Not because he's been in Ann Arbor for 30 years already. Because he'd already walked into a reclamation project with a power washer and some 20-year-olds.

PAIRWISE SECTION

I said last week that sweeping ND was close to a lock at-large, and whatever particularly devastating combination of events would have made that statement untrue have not come to pass. CHN just ran its Pairwise Predictor—20k Monte Carlo simulations of the rest of the season—and Michigan comes out with a 95% chance of a bid, and a two-thirds chance to get a 3 seed or better.

That doesn't mean this weekend's series doesn't matter. Those projections weight games according to KRACH, the statheads' preferred college hockey ranking system, and one of the main reasons Michigan is in near-lock territory is because that system gives Michigan an 82% chance to win any particular game against Arizona State. Splitting this weekend puts Michigan back down in the danger zone:

1-1 this weekend puts Michigan at 13 or 14, most likely

Dave pointed out on the podcast that this year is ripe for bid steals because most of the top spots in the Pairwise are NCHC or Big Ten teams. Providence and Northeastern are the only HE teams currently in the tourney; BC and BU collectively have a ~34% chance to steal a Hockey East Bid. Cornell and Clarkson are the only ECAC teams in at-large spots. CHN gives those two teams a whopping 79% shot at winning the playoff title, but if Cornell does go down a bid steal is likely. Minnesota State is the only WCHA team currently in the field; that's another 38% shot at a steal.

It is possible for Michigan to fall to 14 if they sweep Arizona State and then get swept in the first round of the playoffs by a decent PSU or Wisconsin team, and at that point they'd be vulnerable if two bids get stolen. They are not entirely out of the woods but they'd have to blow it pretty hard to even put themselves in a spot where an odd combination of results booted them.

We are at the Residence Inn Ann Arbor Downtown, which now is the time to book those rooms for football next year because those fill up.

We Couldn’t Have One Without the Other

We can do this because people support us. You should support them too so they’ll want to do it again next year! The show is presented by UGP & The Bo Store, and if it wasn’t for Rishi and Ryan there would be VERY long hiatuses between podcasts.

1. The Hoops Podcast

starts at 1:00

Bracketology: Even the biggest skeptics are coming around on Michigan as a 6-7 seed: NCAA and their buckets make it annoying because a win at Michigan State is the same as a “Quadrant One” trip to Penn State. Encouraging to see head of the selection committee say strength of nonconference is garbage. Big Ten goes to 20 games next year so we’ll see fewer Houston Baptists.

Poole eating into Matthews’s minutes, which is a nice thing to see given CM’s turnovers. MAAR is up to 20% usage. Michigan can beat anybody when they’re getting a huge shot differential from their turnover avoidance. Posting up on Dunc doesn’t work anymore. Peak Wisconsin names—Happ took 23 twos in that game!

Big Ten future: Indiana should be back up, Maryland will solidify itself, Brad Underwood a good hire at Illinois. Annually convince ourselves that Iowa will be good, but they’re 250th on defense. Penn State preview: Watkins gets angry—go get him Mo! Unlikable players in the Big Ten?

Jim McElwain: he’s a position coach who can’t recruit, don’t think he’s a competent dude or a good dude—denigrating players like Mark Mangino. Made up a death threat. Credit card fraud. Track record as a WRs coach but as a 10th assistant he’s a wasted opportunity more than anything. Nobody down South likes him so you’re not even getting some help in Florida recruiting. Like Sherrone Moore and Ed Warriner hires. Not great that Pep is still around if it’s only because he didn’t get an NFL offer.

3. Gimmicky Top Five: Top Five Things NCAA Would Cite Beilein For

starts at 52:51

The FBI is going to come down on a lot of programs and the people in Ann Arbor aren’t scared, but we’re going to try to figure out what they’d find if they put Michigan’s basketball program under the microscope. This is what Michigan State failed to do—we’re getting out in front!

4. Ace’s Hockey Podcast wsg David Nasternak

starts at 1:06:26

Sweep weekend over #1 Notre Dame gives them a shot at the playoffs, provided they take care of business down the stretch vs. Arizona State—tournament upsets can really hurt teams in the 13-15 at-large area. ND was a good matchup for us because Michigan's an offensive team that can control the puck.

It happens about three times a game: Michigan's offense will stall out to not much, someone will fling the ball to Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman, and he'll plunge through a thicket of defenders to the rim. The result, far more frequently than it seems like it should be, is two points when none recently beckoned.

There is a universal undercurrent to all of Abdur-Rahkman's sweeping, acrobatic, contested layups: "why not that, but all the time?"

His uncanny ability to get to the basket in bad situations has been a bedrock of Michigan's late clock offense for years, and remains so. If you can get to the rim and hit 69% with five seconds left on the clock, perhaps we should explore doing that more often.

And yet. MAAR has carved out an incredibly specific size of role no matter how he was operating in that role. His usage went from 16.5 as a freshman to 16.3 as a sophomore, to 16.3 again, and if you'd poked at Kenpom a month ago you would have seen that same 16 staring out at you. This despite a skyrocketing ORTG and a Michigan offense that verges on wonky. It would be unwise but understandable to grab MAAR by the shoulders and shake him, yelling "ahhhhh do more stuff."

Or perhaps this maneuver has already been executed.

As his career rounds the last bend, Abdur-Rahkman finally emerges from the shadow of the role player. He's not an all-conquering, all-usage Trae Young, but going from 16% usage to 20 over the last 7 games has corresponded to a 5-2 stretch where the only thing preventing 6-1 with a win at Purdue was Purdue shooting 80% on halfcourt shots—170 ORTG was not sufficient to win game MVP or, like, the game. Michigan's two worst offensive performances in that stretch by some distance where the two low-usage MAAR games against Northwestern's zone.

It doesn't seem right to say that as MAAR goes, so does Michigan, but it does seem like he provides a baseline of efficiency that the rest of the team can build on. Dude has had 16 turnovers all season, and this recent surge hasn't seen that rate increase: he's got two in those seven games.

Maybe he's already taking all the shots he can be efficient on because he has a spooky ability to identify when he's got a lane. But it kind of feels like if Michigan is going to do something surprising in the tournament, it's because MAAR decides he's going to dominate the ball, just once, in case it's awesome.

BULLETS

[Campredon]

Making yo coffee hot. Jordan Poole entered this game with Michigan locked in a tight contest largely because of their moribund three-point shooting. Poole was 2 for his last 15, and naturally hit 4 of 5 because he has no memory. The rest of the team was 3 of 15, which is a recipe for certain doom sans Poole.

It is completely irrational but it feels like Mo Wagner's first attempt from three dictates whether Michigan's going to burn up the nets or imprison them in a wall of bricks for imagined insults. It was the latter here until Poole rescued them.

This was also a good compare and contrast between Poole and Robinson. OSU focused on limiting Robinson and held him two two attempts; Poole's ability to threaten a drive and pull up got him a couple of unassisted opportunities he canned.

Inverse free throw juju. Hopefully whatever witchdoctor flipped the teams' free throw shooting abilities can hold that spell until March. OSU shot 9 of 19 versus Michigan's 17 of 24, thus preventing a heartstopping finish. A large part of this from Michigan's perspective was getting the right guys to the line: Wagner, MAAR, Robinson, and Poole had 14 attempts. Simpson and Matthews had 7.

Simpson also debuted a new Rip Hamilton free throw homage that got him to 4/6, although the last two rattled around before going down. Whatever helps.

At long last, board obliterated. Dunno what OSU's done to Jae'Sean Tate this year but that looked like the old Tate to me. He was the spearhead for an OSU OREB vanguard that clobbered Michigan for what was the first time probably all year. Michigan got out-OREB'd 15-4, but did make up for it with a +7 TO margin, preventing a serious FGA gap.

We're filing this under Just A Thing for now.

Board obliteration obscures defense. Hoop Math's numbers for yesterdays game are bonkers. They have 8% of OSU's shots at the rim, and 72% two point jumpers. Those seem to exclude putbacks, of which OSU had nine attempts and five makes. Minus those, OSU was 14 of 38 from two—37%. OSU is 32nd nationally in 2PT%.

A large part of this was Keita Bates-Diop going 2 for 11, with that work split about equally between Livers and Robinson. Neither guy did much on offense, but they more than earned their keep by sending a kPOY candidate to one of his worst games of the season. Ace reports that Synergy has Robinson a dang near average defender this year, up from 23rd percentile a year ago. This is largely because teams are trying to post him up a lot more than they did last year. Robinson's proven fairly adept at fending off fours like KBD and Jaren Jackson on the block.

[Campredon]

Zounds! Zavier Simpson's offensive line is decent, but not astounding. What he did to CJ Jackson, though: three points on 5 shot equivalents, zero assists, three turnovers. Simpson committed zero fouls doing this. Jackson hadn't been held without an assist all season. Let's check in on opposing point guards over the last few games:

So not a consistent murder-like substance. It should be noted that approximately all of Mason's twos were pull ups just inside the line that he's been miserable at this season.

What a strange team. OSU, that is. I'm slightly worried that Chris Holtmann has managed to put together a team that will get a solid NCAA seed with this pu-pu platter of available options. Andrew Dakich may be shooting well this year but he's still more or less the walk-on he was at Michigan, except now he's getting 20 minutes a game. His line in 22 minutes yesterday: 0/3, one TO, one steal, one foul. OSU has four pretty good players and then zero.

Holtmann's decision to sit Micah Potter, who is a solid offensive option, for nonentity freshman Kyle Young only exacerbated that gap. Young had Dakich-like usage in 22 minutes, and that puts an enormous burden on your good players to survive in the usage 30s.

Bracket updates. About what you'd expect on the two major-network experts to update after OSU. Lunardi moved Michigan from a 6 to a 5; Palm moved Michigan from an 8 to a 7. OSU is a 5 on Palm's bracket. I'm struggling to see a two-seed gap between these resumes with an identical number of wins and losses. I'm leaving out the H2H and Maryland home wins:

OSU Ws: MSU, @ Purdue. Bad Ls: none.

M Ws: @ MSU, UCLA, @ Texas. Bad Ls: @ Northwestern.

OSU has the #13 SOR per ESPN; Michigan is #15. If it's not tight it's because RPI and quadrants are mis-evaluating Michigan's season.

Michigan has two more Q1 opportunities to finish the season, so they have some upward mobility left.

Analysis: Michigan’s forecheck has been great throughout the weekend and it was on display again in the first period. They did not let Notre Dame out of their zone very often and created a number of solid chances.

Looking at their numbers overall, this is a great offensive performance. They took a lot of attempts and got into the House area for almost half of them. There is a reason that Cale Morris is a Hobey candidate, as was evident this evening. Michigan could have had a few more goals with as many good looks as they had, but Morris stole the show. For their lone goal, Dancs forced a DZTO on the boards, Marody dished to Calderone, and Calderone sniped one just off of Morris’s glove and into the net, therby concluding the scoring.

When Michigan played Ohio State on December 4, everyone expected Ohio State to be a mediocre-at-best Big Ten team. The Buckeyes’ were coming off a 17-15 season and a disastrous offseason, and hadn’t shown anything particularly noteworthy in the early non-conference season. So when Michigan built, and subsequently blew, a 20-point in Columbus, it looked to be a terrible loss and the sign of a team that might struggle to make the NCAA tournament. Now, ten weeks later, a home win over that same team being (rightly) seen as a massive résumé win.

Moe goes up, Moe goes down (Campredon)

Ohio State’s turnaround has been keyed by Big Ten Player-of-the-Year frontrunner Keita Bates-Diop, and Michigan’s resurgence has been led by its defense. On this day, the defense won the battle. Bates-Diop finished with 17 points, but he required 17 shots to get there, and turned the ball over 4 times in the process. Overall, the Wolverines forced 14 turnovers, largely the result of excellent perimeter defense that resulted in numerous transition opportunities. Ohio State’s offensive success was largely predicated on offensive rebounding, as the Buckeyes grabbed 15 offensive boards.

Offensively, Michigan was sluggish out of the gate, trailing 14-10 midway through the first half. That was when Jordan Poole did Jordan Poole things. Michigan went on a 12-4 run, nine of which were Poole’s, including a four-point play. Michigan never relinquished the lead. Poole finished with 15 points on 5-8 shooting, including 4-5 from deep. He was the only Wolverine who shot well from outside (the rest of the team was 3-15 from three), and equally importantly, he provided a notable boost of energy.

Sir, is your microwave running? Well then you’d better try to catch it (Campredon)

The other palpable source of energy was Moritz Wagner. Wagner scored an efficient 12 points, but also spent a large portion of the afternoon scrambling for loose balls and generally being an hyperactive pest. He also benefited from a (generally) laissez-faire approach from the officials, which allowed him to stay on the court despite being involved in some very physical encounters.

In other positive performances, Jaaron Simmons played extended minutes for the third consecutive game, including a solid stretch along side Jordan Poole during Poole’s first half explosion. The highlight of his first half was a pretty feed to Wagner in the post for an easy. It seems pretty clear at this point that he has supplanted Eli Brooks. Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman and Zavier Simpson combined for 20 points in the second half. On the downside, Charles Matthews continued to struggle. He was abused by JaeSean Tate (though Michigan struggled to defend him down low all game), and he was held to six points on six shots while turning the ball over four times. However, he did have a couple of nice takes to the bucket in the second half, and he generally stayed within the flow of the offense.

Adieu, gentlemen (Campredon)

This was Senior Day, and Michigan said farewell to three active players; Muhammad Ali Abdur-Rahkman, Duncan Robinson, and Jaaron Simmons all played significant minutes in this one, and generally played well. But the star of the festivities was Austin Hatch. Hatch, who wasn’t allowed to play because of NCAA rules (he took a medical redshirt a couple of years ago) was announced as a starter, and warmed up with the team. Crisler’s greeting was reminiscent of that Brock Mealer when the Michigan football team opened the season against UConn in 2010.

For the second year in a row, a former Michigan grad transfer played Michigan's Senior Night an a different color jersey. But unlike Spike Albrecht, who received a relatively warm reception, Andrew Dakich was booed every time he touched the ball. Such is the nature of rivalry. Dakich finished with 0 points, 0 assists, and a turnover in 22 minutes.

This win removes what little doubt remained about Michigan’s tournament status. They still have a chance to play their way out of a second-round matchup with a 1- or 2-seed, though Michigan has recently been projected anywhere from a 3-seed to a “launched-by-trebuchet-into-the-sun,” so your guess is as good as mine. For the moment, we will have to be satisfied with a hearty round of “NOT LIKE FOOTBALL <clap> <clap> <clap clap clap>.”

THE ESSENTIALS

THE US

It's seeding crunch time for Michigan, and here is a massive opportunity: a QUADRANT ONE GAME at home that they're actually favored in, albeit narrowly. This is the first of three Q1 opportunities Michigan has to close out the season and its most manageable, because of college basketball's home/road refereeing split.

As far as the team goes, your top story is Duncan Robinson May Have Made A Deal With The Devil And We're Fine With That. After a senior year spent mostly scuffling, Robinson is 10/15 from three in his last two games, and paired that with excellent defense against Iowa's Tyler Cook. A version of Michigan that has a 42% from three Duncan Robinson is a much more threatening one.

And if Charles Matthews could get off the mat at the same time... I mean, probably not. But maybe!

THE LINEUP CARD

Projected starters are in bold. Hover over headers for stat explanations. The "Should I Be Mad If He Hits A Three" methodology: we're mad if a guy who's not good at shooting somehow hits one. Yes, you're still allowed to be unhappy if a proven shooter is left open. It's a free country.

Pos.

#

Name

Yr.

Ht./Wt.

%Min

%Poss

ORtg

SIBMIHHAT

G

3

CJ Jackson

Jr.

6'1, 175

75

23

109

No

Plus usage shot generator; all threes assisted but very few twos. 2PJ main weakness. Good not great A:TO.

G

15

Kam Williams

Sr.

6'2, 185

58

15

107

No

Just A Shooter, though about half of those are inside the arc. Just 11% of his shots at rim. Very good shooter though.